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Do market rents reflect user costs?

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  • Goeyvaerts, Geert
  • Buyst, Erik

Abstract

Although in many countries more than twenty percent of all households rely on the private rental market for housing, the research concerning the fundamentals of rental prices has been limited. Standard capital investment theory states that the market rental price of capital services will equal the user cost of capital in equilibrium. The empirical evidence in support of the rent-user cost equivalence theorem is, however, scarce if not non-existent. We examine the relationship between market rents and the user cost of rental properties based on a unique micro data set on the earnings and costs of Flemish landlords. Robust regression estimates of portfolio-average rental earnings on portfolio-average user costs point to a strong correspondence at the micro-level. In some cases, we find a user cost coefficient which is not significantly different from one together with an intercept estimate which is not significantly different from zero even when we control for landlord characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Goeyvaerts, Geert & Buyst, Erik, 2019. "Do market rents reflect user costs?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 112-130.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhouse:v:44:y:2019:i:c:p:112-130
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhe.2019.01.001
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    Cited by:

    1. Kieran McQuinn & Teresa Monteiro & Conor O’Toole, 2021. "House Price Expectations, Labour Market Developments and the House Price to Rent Ratio: A User Cost of Capital Approach," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 62(1), pages 25-47, January.
    2. Cathal Coffey & Kieran McQuinn & Conor O'Toole, 2022. "Rental equivalence, owner‐occupied housing, and inflation measurement: Microlevel evidence from Ireland," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(4), pages 990-1021, December.
    3. Tsai, I-Chun & Lin, Che-Chun, 2022. "A re-examination of housing bubbles: Evidence from European countries," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(2).
    4. Marina Gindelsky & Jeremy G. Moulton & Scott A. Wentland, 2020. "Valuing Housing Services in the Era of Big Data: A User Cost Approach Leveraging Zillow Microdata," NBER Chapters, in: Big Data for Twenty-First-Century Economic Statistics, pages 339-370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Damen, Sven & Schildermans, Stef, 2022. "Capital requirements, mortgage rates and house prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rent; User costs; Market equilibrium; Robust regression;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

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